Are there any instances of "GOD" order and/or condoning the rape of women in the bible?

by Black Man 41 Replies latest jw friends

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  Rabbi Midge

  Humbled: There is a big, BIG, difference between Roman Catholic liturgy and the far more ancient liturgy of Judaism--which is far more ancient by thousands of years.

  Roman Catholic liturgy may have been designed to create an emotional impact, but Jewish liturgy was designed to educate and instruct, to keep a culture alive and going. It was not designed to subvert like the Catholic liturgy you describe.

  To illustrate: If it were not for the Jewish liturgy, some of my people would have been extinguished by the Catholics during the Spanish Inquisition. Instead, the Crypto-Jews kept it alive and practiced it secretly for some 500 years, even managing to keep their language of Ladino alive halfway across the world as they were chased from Spain to the Americas--all the while handing down their cultural identity from generation to generation despite hatred, death threats, antisemitism and persecution by means of the Jewish liturgical services the Crypto-Jews attributed to memory.

  Call me condescending if you want. That doesn't mean I'm wrong in anything I've said. We might not appreciate the way something is said to us, but that doesn't make what is said to us any less valuable. Exercise, medicine, and often the truth hurts.

  And as for a college education, well, Humbled, you need it. And it is possible. If you can't afford it yourself, there should be avenues available for you somehow. A college education does not offer a moral value, you're right there. What it does offer, however, is a value in critical thinking, a value in freedom to become something more than what you are now.

  Hate me. Despise me. Call me names. Call me condescending. I couldn't care less. But I am right. You need an education. It is a possibility. It's always a possibility. It's never impossible. The only thing holding you back from getting one is you. If you fail to get one, since you say you did not grow up as a Jehovah's Witness, then the only person who is failing here is you.

  With a screen name like "Humbled," I am sure you are someone who is definitely up to the challenge. I am sure you will not fail to become something and someone greater than you are now. Don't fail to get all the education you can possibly get.
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  EverApostate

  Rabbi Midge, are you seriously defending the Biblical events ?
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  Rabbi Midge

  Goodness, NO, EverApostate! I'm Jewish, not Christian!

  Either you're not reading my posts, or you're reading them with some sort of projected view you've picked up from somewhere.

  What have you people been taught about what Jews think about their own Scriptures? That we really believe these things are literally true? Really? Is that what the Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witnesses teach you folks?

  No wonder my nephew's JW girlfriend is so adamant that Passover is supposed to be on Nisan 14 instead of on Nisan 15 (and she pronounces it NEYE-san instead of nuh-SAN as it is supposed to be pronounced, which irritates the snot out of her each time I correct her, but that's another story for another time).

  No, EverApostate. I am not a Southern Baptist or a Christian Fundamentalist. I am a Jewish Rabbi. As such, I do not hold the Biblical events as literal.

  If you have been taught that Jews do, then you need to check out a publication by the Jewish Publication Society: "The Jewish Study Bible." It contains the latest NJPS translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into English and critical study notes comprised by the latest Jewish scholars representing Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish thought. You will note that the Jewish view on the Biblical events is nothing like you probably have been taught by Western or Christian society. It definitely is not literal history.

  Where on earth did you get the idea from any of my comments that I was doing that sort of thing? Didn't you see the word "Rabbi" in my name? Don't you have the slightest idea what Jews understand about the Scriptures? I've been saying "liturgy" repeatedly in my comments. Don't you know the difference between "liturgy" and "history"?

  Well, I got to go for now. It may be a while before I return. I do have real rabbi work to do. This has been an experience.

  Promise me, folks, that you will learn what Jews really teach about things, and not just by using Google. Go take a class from your local college. Go visit a synagogue or temple. Take a university course. Buy the Jewish Study Bible and study the critical footnote apparatus.

  "Are you seriously defending the Biblical events?"

  Really, now? What do you take me for? You're joking, right?
• 

  sparrowdown

  RM - Maybe you should tell all this to your soon to be niece in law, tell her how you really feel she probably needs to hear it.

  I do know JWs are insufferably arrogant and have a superiority complex when it comes to their bible "knowledge" which is very superficial and skewed. They are indoctrinated from infancy that they are in fact God's chosen people after he rejected the natural jews. They're indoctinated to believe they're special and are the only ones who can interpret the bible correctly. They believe they are better than all other religions and believe them to be part of Babylon the great marked for destruction. They look down on "worldly people."

  I could go on but I'm sure you will get to know all this in time. It won't be easy for you if you want to maintain a relationship with your nephew once he is married to her. The cult she is associated with is... frankly, quite horrible.

  Good luck with that.
• 

  Vidiot

  Midge - "What have you people been taught about what Jews think about their own Scriptures? That we really believe these things are literally true? Really? Is that what the Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witnesses teach you folks?"

  Eh, more of a lie by omission... the WTS doesn't concern themselves much with what Judaism teaches. And they certainly don't mention that the actual original Bible writers themselves didn't hold them as literal (hell, I think at least some of the WT higher-ups aren't even aware of that historical nugget).

  In fact, the WTS has used the Gospel accounts of Jesus - a rabbi - referencing events in the OT as "proof" that said events were literal history. (The fact that Jesus taught almost exclusively using parables and allegories notwithstanding... )
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  sparrowdown

  FYI for RM - JWs are not taught they're indoctrinated. They're not taught how to think they're told what to think.
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  humbled

  College, midge. My daughters went to college. They are working in places where college has value. You do not know where l live. The troubles that are overwhelming my community, the well educated are not willing to help lift “ not even with their little finger”

  l am not referring to welfare.

  You might say to me “you don’t know what you don’t know”.

  And l say the same to you.

  College would be wonderful...who doesn’t need it? But for the work that l am doing??? And You are a Rabbi? You think a fine distinction between the Catholic and Jewish tradition in liturgy matters in my world? Please.

  But you are condescending to persist in this admonition for me to go to college -NOW-when you don’t know anything about me. You can declare how right your view is.. that college will set me on a good road. This might even sound like wisdom.

  Do I will say this: The world should go to college.

  I believe that. I do. With all my heart.

  But there is this problem-hearts are not always made better by college. Not that that is the mission of higher education in the first place. No, there is a deeper need where l work.

  For now,I struggle for a world of better hearts than of better minds. A world of better hearts will soon be a world of better minds. The JW world worked for neither of these things .

  Jewish people place a high value on education and that is fine. So do l. Leave off carping on me about college.
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  Rabbi Midge

  Humbled,

  I haven't any idea how you have made this thread about you. It is not.

  As to your needing to get more education, this is very apparent. To illustrate:

  You mentioned in your first post to me that...

  Conservative Jews give the man the freedom to easily divorce. Not so for the woman . How does that still bind ?

  This is not accurate or true at all. Conservative Judaism does not under any circumstances give Jewish men more freedom to divorce their wives than they do women. Women may initiate the process, and a man may be thus morally obligated under Jewish law to grant the divorce to his wife even if she wants it but he does not.

  However, you spoke and came to a judgment of me and Judaism based on your lack of education adding that you had no time for my "foolishness."

  But the ignorance you choose has led you to a wrong conclusion. This thread wasn't originally about college anyway or you. It was about several particular texts from Scripture.

  Get your facts straight. If you going to run with the big educated dogs, you had better be ready to keep up with them. Otherwise stay on the porch.

  And yes, that's from a rabbi. We ain't sissy Christian preachers or sweet nuns. This thread is not about you, and nobody cares about your feelings, honey. Get your facts straight or get an education or get out of the way.

  And don't just sit there among the unwashed, uneducated masses...for goodness sake, clean them up and educate them while you're there.

  P.S.: And you're right. I don't know what kind of work you do or where you live, etc. And frankly I don't care. See how ignorant you are about Judaism? You need education. Get a degree. I will stop bugging you about it once your ignorance disappears. You don't like it? I'm cool with that.
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  humbled

  “I have real rabbi work to do.”—Rabbi Midge

  This thread isn’t about Judaism or college. It asked if there were instances where God ordered the rape of women. People on the forum cited a lot of scriptures (God’s Word, so they say). Those scriptures were/are misogynistic and there are more than those that portray women as inferior.

  Jews and Christians have for hundreds of years perpetuated bad attitudes toward women based on those scriptures. Men of high education have used those scriptures.

  I said most ex-JWs didn’t need a professor or a rabbi to figure out that these scriptures were no good. You talked down to these people. l didn’t find a generous spirit in your comments.

  You are not entirely honest about the residual imbalance in the traditional divorce process among Jews.

  I am out of this . Try to grow your heart as well as your mind. But here, enjoy getting in the last word, Rabbi Midge:

  “Get your facts straight. If you going to run with the big educated dogs, you had better be ready to keep up with them. Otherwise stay on the porch.
  And yes, that's from a rabbi. We ain't sissy Christian preachers or sweet nuns. This thread is not about you, and nobody cares about your feelings, honey. Get your facts straight or get an education or get out of the way.”
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  EverApostate

  Rabbi Midge, your Holy books are part of the Bible.

  Do you mean to say that all the massacres , ethnic cleansing, slavery , rape , Pillage in the Bible are not literal but Symbolic ?